Influencing Factors on Exports. How does the Level of Eucation, Research Intensity and Productivity affect a Country's Exports in the Years 2015 to 2017?

Table of Contents

Abstract

List of figures

List of tables

List of abbreviations

1. Introduction

2. Data description
2.1 Fundamentals
2.2 Exports of goods and services
2.2.1 Characteristics
2.2.2 Development of global exports
2.3 Level of education
2.3.1 Characteristics
2.3.2 Development of government expenditure on education
2.4 Research intensity
2.4.1 Characteristics
2.4.2 Development of R&D investments
2.5 Productivity
2.5.1 Characteristics
2.5.2 Development of productivity

3. Econometric analysis
3.1 Hypotheses
3.2 Analysis
3.2.1 Basics of correlation
3.2.2 Overall correlation table
3.2.3 Regression analysis of independent variables
3.2.4 Regression analysis of interdependencies

4. Critical review of the results
4.1 Discussion of results
4.2 Evaluation of the study

5. Conclusion

Appendix

List of references

List of figures

Figure 1: Development of global exports from 1948 to 2020

Figure 2: Comparison of export rations between different stages of development

Figure 3: Comparison of government expenditure on education between different stages of development

Figure 4: Comparison invest. in R&D between different stages of development

Figure 5: Comparison of productivity between different stages of development

Figure 6: Scatter diagram of H1

Figure 7: Scatter diagram of H2

Figure 8: Scatter diagram of H3

Figure 9: Scatter diagram – L.D. LN Education vs. LN Exports

Figure 10: Scatter diagram – M.D. LN Education vs. LN Exports

Figure 11: Scatter diagram – H.D. LN Education vs. LN Exports

Figure 12: Scatter diagram – L.D. LN R&D vs. LN Exports

Figure 13: Scatter diagram – M.D. LN R&D vs. LN Exports

Figure 14: Scatter diagram – H.D. LN R&D vs. LN Exports

Figure 15: Scatter diagram – L.D. LN Productivity vs. LN Exports

Figure 16: Scatter diagram – M.D. LN Productivity vs. LN Exports

Figure 17: Scatter diagram – H.D. LN Productivity vs. LN Exports

Figure 18: H4 – LN Education vs. LN R&D

Figure 19: H4 – LN Producitvity vs. LN R&D

Figure 20: H4 – LN Education vs LN Productivity

List of tables

Table 1: Definition of our development stages

Table 2: Overview of hypotheses

Table 3: Overall correlation table

Table 4: Multiregression analysis of all development stages

Table 5: Overview of the evaluated hypotheses

Table 6: Multiregression analysis of low developed countries

Table 7: Multiregression analysis of mid-developed countries

Table 8: Multiregression analysis of high developed countries

List of abbreviations

Educ. Education

GDP p.c. Gross Domestic Product per capita

GDP Gross Domestic Product

GNI Gross National Income

Gov. Exp. Government Expenditure

H.D High developed

Invest. Investment

L.D Low developed

LN Logarithm

M.D Medium developed

MLR Multi linear regression

OVB Omitted Variable Bias

Popu Population

Prod. Productivity

R&D Research and Development

Regr. Regression

1. Introduction

In recent years, the world has become increasingly globalized. Every product and every service is available anywhere in the world at any time. It does not matter which country you live in - thanks to digitalization and especially the Internet, it is easier than ever to buy products from foreign countries, no matter how far away they may be. You can simply order them online and receive them in the postal delivery just a few days later. This interaction is called exporting and is hugely important in today's global trade. This is partly because exports are closely linked to many other variables, such as the competitiveness of a country, exchange rates, world economic situation, commodity prices and wages, to name just a few. In addition, intensive exports enable the import of goods through the inflow of foreign exchange. This is particularly important for countries like Germany, which are poor in raw materials and usually also overpopulated. At the same time, imports have the task of overcoming bottlenecks, bridging production difficulties due to technical backwardness or excessive demand, and balancing out price differences between the domestic and foreign markets (Lernhelfer 2020). In general, rising exports are not just a local development, but a long-term trend across international trade, even if growth has slowed in recent years. In 2019, global exports of goods and services amounted to USD 18.9 trillion (Statista 2020). In comparison, U.S. GDP in 2018 was about $20.6 trillion, nearly two trillion more than global exports (Statista 2019). In the past, there were some collapses in world trade, such as in 2001 due to the "dotcom bubble" and the terror attack on the World Trade Center. Afterwards, growth increased again until the financial crisis began in 2009 (Görg 2015).

The brief introduction of the topic also simultaneously introduces the motivation for the project group's choice of topic. International trade takes place every day, influential events affect trade transactions and Germany was considered the "export world champion" for a time. We want to know what is behind individual factors, why they are important and why exports do not only rely on high-performance products. We further want to find out whether there is a differential impact on exports between countries at different stages of development.

In order to keep within the scope of this work and to ensure the quantity of the statistical investigation, the years from 2015 to 2017 are taken up. The three years are considered together, and no annual differentiation is made. Since there are many indicators of exports, the aim of this work is to answer the following specific research question:

“How does the level of education, research intensity and productivity affect a country´s exports in the years 2015 to 2017?”

To answer this question, we first look at our data description in Chapter 2. In this section, we define each variable used in the analysis and show its historical development. This is followed by our economic analysis in Chapter 3. First, our developed hypotheses are presented before our analysis is then taken up. The following chapter briefly reviews our hypotheses and evaluates the analysis. Finally, in Chapter 5, a conclusion is drawn with an answer to the research question and an outlook into the future.

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